rather promising, this last development, what? Rather promising! But I have your pardon, Mr. Preston; you know rather that I always hoped it wasn't you. I say, I always hoped it!"
"I know you did," the young American received the amends. "I told Miss Varris that I really believed you hoped it wasn't I, though you couldn't honestly think it."
"Quite so!" The Englishman closed that matter. "But since it can't be you, that gives something rather good, now, for the voyage, what? And, I say, I was fearing a dull passage, too! But here we are! We have on the same ship with us now the man who has been using us all summer. And, I say, first he was impudent enough to show us, in his most characteristic way, that he is here; and then we receive independent confirmation of it from the police. And dull this, you know, if he could be you, Mr. Preston. But since he can't be—rather good now, what? But come, Mr. Preston, we must report to the captain."
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